Digital Television System Scalability and Interoperability

The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is the governmental body charged with regulating the terrestrial broadcasting industry. In July of 1987, in response to a petition from broadcasters, the FCC issued a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) concerning the adoption of standards that would permit an advanced television service to be established in the United States.¹ After studying the response to the NOI, the FCC, in September 1988, issued a Tentative Decision and Further NOI² defining a plan of action. This plan of action was further defined by FCC Chairman Sikes on 21 March 1990.³ In summary, the tentative decision and plan of action requires that: (1) Existing terrestrial broadcasters must be able to implement an advanced television service; (2) The spectrum for such service will be found within the existing VHF and UHF bands; (3) ATS broadcasting shall be received by the present population of over 160,000,000 NTSC receivers by an ATS signal which is accompanied by a simulcast of an NTSC signal. (4) Channel bandwidth is limited to 6 MHz.

Published

1994-01

Content type

Original Research

DOI

10.5594/M001293

ISBN

978-1-61482-945-4